Episode #28: The (Third) Christmas Special
Images: all ITV/Mammoth Screen // TNK logo by Tom Pounder
The TNK Christmas party returns! Charlotte Lydia Riley and Emma Lundin get festive by discussing moody detectives, poorly lit pubs, Oxford snobs and the very long 1950s – all channelled through our love for TV copper Endeavour.
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FOOTNOTES
Spoiler alert: This episode features plenty of Endeavour spoilers – but isn’t Morse the biggest spoiler of them all?
First things first: if you’re in the UK, you can watch Endeavour on ITVX;
Our previous Christmas specials are #21 on The Crown (episode and footnotes here) and #6 on Mad Men (episode and footnotes here);
Fun fact: Emma’s partner says that season 6, episode 6 of The Crown is the most boring bit of TV he’s ever seen;
Eleanor Quince teaches modern British history at the University of Southampton, including a module called The Real Downton Abbey. Read more about Eleanor here and follow her on Twitter here;
Dad’s Army is a comedy series about the British home guard during the Second World War, which was broadcast between 1968 and 1977. Corinna Peniston-Bird is a historian at Lancaster University, and the author of Contesting Home Defence: Men, Women and the Home Guard in the Second World War (Manchester University Press, 2013) with Penny Summerfield. Read more about Corinna here;
Inspector Morse, the TV series, ended in 2000. Thank you, Wikipedia;
A Touch of Frost, starring David Jason, was on ITV between 1992 and 2010. Thanks again, Wikipedia!
Recaps are great: here is The Guardian’s on Mad Men and the New York Times on Succession;
Here is a list of Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse books – in order;
Alison Light’s book on her life with the radical historian Raphael Samuel is called A Radical Romance: A Memoir of Love, Grief and Consolation. Her book Forever England: Femininity, Literature and Conservatism Between the War was published by Routledge in 1991. Read more about Alison here;
Påskekrim: “Norwegian Easter equals brutal murders”, according to Visit Norway;
The Inspector Morse book featuring the Swedish hitchhiker is called The Way Thorugh the Woods;
Richard Osman has – at the time of writing – published four books in his Thursday Murder Club series;
Charlotte’s book is Imperial Island: A History of Empire in Modern Britain (Penguin, 2023). Read all about it (and buy it for everyone you know, says Emma) here;
Spivs! “[S]lang for a type of petty criminal who deal in illicit, typically black market, goods.”
Colours is episode 4 of season 5 of Endeavour. Here’s more information on the 1968 Race Relations Act and Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood speech;
The Quakers describe themselves as “a faith group committed to working for equality and peace”;
The Women’s Liberation conference at Ruskin College in Oxford in 1970 features in episode 1 of season 7 (‘Oracle’) of Endeavour – as does Abigail Thaw and her daughter (the latter in character as her real-life grandmother Sally Alexander. Read more about Sally Alexander and her work here;
Jamie Parker features in ‘Trove’ (season 2, episode 1) as Dr Matthew Copley-Barnes – some of the script is available in quote form here;
More on the Bullingdon Club here and Posh, the play by Laura Wade that turned into the film The Riot Club here;
Mozart’s Requiem – as not sung by Emma and Roger Allam;
Colin Dexter wrote in his will that Shaun Evans is the last-ever Morse - and here is a story about Colin Dexter’s cameos in Morse, Lewis and Endeavour;
Charlotte reads from Wendy Cope’s poem A Policeman’s Lot, which features in this collection from 2012:
“Oh, once I was a policeman young and merry (young and merry),
Controlling crowds and fighting petty crime (petty crime),
But now I work on matters literary (litererry)
And I am growing old before my time (‘fore my time).
No, the imagination of a writer (of a writer)
Is not the sort of beat a chap would choose (chap would choose)
And they’ve assigned me a prolific blighter (‘lific blighter) –
I’m patrolling the unconscious of Ted Hughes.”
Read Wendy Cope’s The Orange here;
OUR RECOMMENDATIONS: CHARITIES AT THE END OF DIFFICULT YEAR
Emma recommends you send what cash you might have to Medical Aid for Palestinians;
Charlotte recommends that you donate to your local food bank (which you can find here) and/or the Trussell Trust.
THE NEXT EPISODE…
…will be made available in 2024. Can’t wait till then? Catch up with all 28 TNK episodes here!
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